Off and running

Cary Guffey with his medal for completing the Boston Marathon in 2018. “It was the worst weather in 122 years … and it was fantastic,” Guffey said of his 2018 Boston Marathon experience. He has qualified to run in Boston again in 2020.

After his 40th birthday, Cary Guffey woke up in the middle of the night with a new goal: to complete a marathon. There was only one problem.

“I was not a runner,” the Shelby County resident said.

Despite starting with no experience, Guffey was motivated and trained for a year. He and a friend ran the Disney Marathon in January 2013.

“It was fantastic. I mean, Disney does it so well, and they keep you distracted,” Guffey said.

On the way home from Disney World, Guffey said his friend asked him what was next and decided to sign them both up for the Mercedes-Benz Marathon in February.

“So I ran my first and second marathons within 30 days of each other,” Guffey said.

He now has 33 marathons in 23 states under his belt, and on Feb. 10, Guffey will compete in the Mercedes-Benz Marathon for the seventh time. It’s a race he participates in every year.

“Mercedes is so well organized and there’s so much crowd support, that I was distracted on that course as well. The city really comes out to support that race,” Guffey said.

When asked why he continues to run marathons, Guffey said, “Well, you’ve got to do something, right?”

Prior to running, Guffey said soccer was a hobby for many years. Guffey picked up soccer after a brief stint as a child actor, playing roles in movies and TV series from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.

His most famous role was also his start, playing Barry Guiler in the Stephen Spielberg movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” when he was 4 years old.

Guffey said acting was a neat experience, but his parents were cautious about it and kept it as a hobby for him. He met Queen Elizabeth II, filmed a movie in Rome and starred alongside actors such as Burt Reynolds, Michael J. Fox and Charlton Heston. But when he got to the awkward teen years, Guffey said roles became harder to find and he moved on to new hobbies.

Now a financial planner and father of two sons, Patrick and Griffin, Guffey said he has different goals in mind than acting. That includes running a marathon in all 50 states.

While traveling to marathons, Guffey has gotten to visit the homes of Mark Twain and Prince, and has seen other notable sights. Some of his bigger races have included the New York, Chicago and Boston marathons.

“It was the worst weather in 122 years … and it was fantastic,” Guffey said of his 2018 Boston Marathon experience. He has qualified to run in Boston again in 2020.

Guffey said the training to run a marathon isn’t bad once you start building the habit of running, and he likes that there’s always another goal to achieve with the next race.

“You develop a lifestyle around your running and you realize your energy level is up,” he said.

Many marathoners talk about a mental wall that they have to push through to finish the race, but Guffey said he doesn’t experience that. Once he reaches mile 18, Guffey said it’s just a question of how good his time will be, not whether he’ll finish at all.

“I’ve always been really mentally strong and powered through it,” he said.

That doesn’t mean he’s immune to the physical challenges of running 26.2 miles. Guffey said the 2018 Mercedes-Benz Marathon “unequivocally was the hardest race I’ve ever done” because of a sudden temperature change that his body wasn’t prepared for.

“It was a struggle, which was partially why I decided to run it again this year,” he said.

The 2019 Mercedes-Benz Marathon will be in downtown Birmingham. The weekend of events on Feb. 8-10 includes the Regions Superhero 5K, the Kids Marathon, Half Marathon and the full Mercedes-Benz Marathon. Learn more at mercedesmarathon.com.